Peter Bills: Brits basking in glory of their two great loves

Britain's Prince William accompanied by his then fiancee Kate Middleton. Photo / AP

Two things beloved of the hearts of the British nation have dominated this month in the UK. Frankly, the place is manacled to them. One is the royal wedding, the other the weather.

No one, not even the big fella upstairs, could have found two topics closer to the hearts of the British people. They're obsessed with both.

So - in a perfect symmetry - for most of the month at the end of which Prince William will marry, the weather has been glorious.

Whoever ordered it must have immaculate connections with the Almighty.

British life tends to be intrinsically associated with these two elements.

Ask anyone who was there what it was like on D-day 1944 and they'll say "I remember that weekend. I had to go down to so-and-so on the bike and the weather was dreadful."

The invasion? Don't remember much about that but the weather, oh, never forget that.

It's the same with royal weddings. If elderly Americans can tell you where they were and what they were doing when they first heard that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, the older British people can remember what they did at the Queen's wedding.

Street parties, cheering crowds around Buckingham Palace ... they remember it all vividly.

This month, even discounting the royal wedding, will be remembered for ... the weather. This Easter weekend, temperatures climbed to 27.1C.

My daughter phoned on Saturday night from London.

"How are you, darling?"

"Awful, feel terrible."

"Oh no, why? Got the flu?"

"No, got sunburned today. All over my shoulders, face and chest."

Brits are never so happy as when they're either getting ready for a royal wedding or getting sunburned. Put the two together in a single week and you have a kind of social Valhalla.

This will go down as the hottest April on record - average Easter temperatures in this part of the world are about 14C, but it has been almost double that in some places.

And with some warmth in the sun comes another hoary old British chestnut: if Britain gets three successive days of sunshine, there are warnings of a water shortage.

I understand, from glimpsing the odd word here and there, that there might have been a bit of trouble among the locals in a place named Libya. Bit of shooting somewhere called Syria, too.

Oh well, can't be bothered about that. We've still got to buy some more bunting to string across the road at the street party.

And why haven't we heard from Miss Hindmarsh about the plastic cups. They have been ordered, haven't they?

"But Britain is actually engaged in two wars, Afghanistan and Libya," you whisper.

"Well yes, maybe, but there are more important things to worry about than that at the moment, aren't there dear?" is the reply.

Like what? Well, who has made the bride's dress? Which fish shop owner in the north of England is somehow related to the bride and why is her mother said to be "pushy" or, even worse, representative of that dreaded sect, "Middle England"?

We are told intricate details of the layout of the cottage in North Wales where the royal couple will live, what time they will get up on the morning of the wedding, what they will eat and how many hundreds will eat with them. But we're a bit hazy as to what is actually going on in Afghanistan, the country where Britain is at war.

Ye Gods, you've gotta love 'em, the Brits. Harmless, increasingly ignored by those who wield real power in the world and with a population the majority of which live in bungalows (with nothing up top), they have plunged into this royal wedding like bathers into the freezing English seas of April.

They are the great, glorious eccentrics of the world.